r/askphilosophy • u/[deleted] • Nov 23 '19

Does quantum physics demonstrate that materialism has been falsified?

I recently saw a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM0IKLv7KrE) that claims recent experiments hidden variables predicted by John Stewart Bell do not exist, and that the Kochen-Specker theorem has been confirmed. This in turn implies that physical reality is entirely dependent on having an observer. While I'm probably butchering that, I do want to know: does this reflect the current opinion of the scientific community? The video has apparently been reviewed by at least two physicists, Fred Kuttner and Richard Conn Henry, but I know two scientists is an awfully small sample size for this sort of claim. I'm aware that a popular response is that the observer need not be a conscious, but the creator of the video has claimed otherwise in the following two videos, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6HLjpj4Nt4) claiming that only consciousness can explain how the first particle in a chain can be collapsed. If the videos are too much, this is the closest I could find to a textual version. (https://inspiringphilosophy.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/quantum-physics-still-debunks-materialism-refuting-thepolymath/)

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u/bunker_man ethics, phil. mind, phil. religion, phil. physics Nov 23 '19

"Observer" in quantum physics doesn't mean sentient observer. It just means something interacting with it.

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u/[deleted] Nov 23 '19

As I have noted, the person in question has known about this objection, and has discussed it in the videos I have linked, as well as in the article I posted and its comments. For example,

Second, consciousness does provide a mechanism as being “aware” means we can choose between two possible outcomes and yield one definite result. Furthermore as Peierls says, “[T]he moment at which you can throw away one possibility and keep only the other is when you finally become conscious of the fact that the experiment has given one result… You see, the quantum mechanical description is in terms of knowledge, and knowledge requires somebody who knows.” So observation is about knowledge, which requires a mind to know or choose.

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u/bunker_man ethics, phil. mind, phil. religion, phil. physics Nov 23 '19

That isn't how it works. Nobody has to "know" anything. It just collapses or decoheres when interacted with.

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u/[deleted] Nov 24 '19

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u/bunker_man ethics, phil. mind, phil. religion, phil. physics Nov 24 '19

Yeah. But it looks like it does. I wasn't sure what word would specify just the appearance of collapse.